Two Different USAs

I was just reading this article on AlterNet about the differences between the Republican and Democratic debates, and this part jumped out at me (below the fold):

The differences between the two parties aren’t just matters of debate style unfortunately. Now that we have seen the presidential candidates in both parties on the debate stage, it’s clear that the two parties don’t just have different political philosophies. They represent two different countries.

Republican America is a dystopian hellscape in which evil, violent foreigners are trying to kill us in our beds while rapacious jackbooted government thugs try to wrestle our guns from our cold, dead fingers and Planned Parenthood sociopaths are committing mayhem on children and selling the body parts. And that’s just for starters.

Democratic America is a very powerful nation struggling with a declining middle class and economic insecurity at the hands of the ultra-rich, requiring some energetic government intervention to mitigate income inequality, solve the looming crisis of climate change and manage global crises without plunging the nation into more wars. They also must hold off that anarchistic opposition which sees the world as a dystopian hellscape and that may be the greatest challenge of all.

This. So much this. How in the world did Faux News get so many people’s view of the country and the world so out of alignment?